


Trojan Horse

by galwednesday



Series: Bait and Switch 'verse [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Home Alone Inspired Shenanigans, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Noodle Incidents, just another day at the office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22515736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galwednesday/pseuds/galwednesday
Summary: "What," Bucky said, and opened his eyes.He was in an ambulance, but the engine was off. He was on a gurney but not hooked up to any leads or IVs. Wilson and Romanova were sitting on either side of him with playing cards in their hands. Judging by the cards scattered over his blanket-covered chest, they'd been using his unconscious body as a discard pile."Hey man, good to have you back. Got any threes?" Wilson said to Romanova, then sighed as she shook her head.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Bait and Switch 'verse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1021446
Comments: 133
Kudos: 2300





	Trojan Horse

**Author's Note:**

> Like ten months ago Silentwalrus linked to [this post](https://robotmango.tumblr.com/post/183750070509/swingsetindecember-where-a-hero-gets-too) about a hero getting injured and their superpowerless friend taking over and said that it was perfect for Bait and Switch Steve, which was 100% correct, so this is all their fault and I am blameless in this endeavor. Thanks also to Nendian and Cabloom for rapid typo spotting as I barreled towards posting at high speed!

"What," Bucky said, and opened his eyes.

He was in an ambulance, but the engine was off. He was on a gurney but not hooked up to any leads or IVs. Wilson and Romanova were sitting on either side of him with playing cards in their hands. Judging by the cards scattered over his blanket-covered chest, they'd been using his unconscious body as a discard pile.

"Hey man, good to have you back. Got any threes?" Wilson said to Romanova, then sighed when she shook her head.

"What," Bucky repeated, growlier this time. His body was heavy and slow to respond, and although he couldn’t remember what had happened, the situation was familiar enough that he was deeply annoyed rather than panicked. He hated waking up from sedation. But this wasn't as bad as it could be, with two teammates on either side obviously unworried. The mission must have gone fine.

He didn't remember a mission. He remembered getting ready for work. He remembered--

Bucky sat up abruptly, cards cascading off his chest. "Steve?"

"Right there." Wilson pointed towards a blur on the other side of the open ambulance doors. "He's still giving his statement. The paramedics already looked him over, he's fine, nothing worse than scraped elbows."

Bucky's heartbeat slowed, but the jolt of panic had done a lot to burn off the lingering sedative haze. He squinted with great determination until the outside world came into focus.

They were in the tiny parking lot behind the office building where he worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There were four police cars, lights off, parked sideways across half the parking lot spaces. Steve was standing against the wall directly opposite the ambulance doors, talking to a woman in uniform taking notes on a small spiral pad. He was a mess, with grime and sweat matting his hair, patches of vivid purple and blue ink smeared over his shirt and pants, and both elbows wrapped in gauze and bandages. One of his shoes was missing. A plastic mask of a children’s cartoon character dangled from his neck, the same one that had been in the Lost and Found box since the Halloween party months ago.

Bucky whistled two sharp notes. Steve looked up immediately and lit up at the sight of Bucky awake and upright. He gave Bucky a wide smile as he signed. "I'm okay, stay put."

Bucky frowned. He didn't want to stay put; he wanted to plaster himself to Steve’s back and check Steve's elbows and tuck Steve's head under his chin. But clearly Steve knew more about what was going on than he did, and he could see that Steve was in one piece and on his feet, so the rest could wait. He signed an acknowledgment. 

"Be there soon," Steve signed, and blew him a kiss.

Bucky sighed and blew him a kiss back, then turned around so he wouldn't keep staring at Steve and distracting him. 

Unfortunately, this put him face-to-face with Black Widow and Captain America, both watching him with the predatory glee of kids who’d run into their school principal on a weekend and caught him buying anti-dandruff shampoo.

"Wow," Wilson said. 

"No," Bucky said reflexively. Wilson’s grin widened. Urgent diversion necessary. "What happened?"

“Do you really work here?” Romanova asked, because she would never volunteer information when she could trade for it instead. 

“Part time.” 

“What do you _do_?” Wilson said, eyeing Bucky’s work outfit. Bucky automatically checked his shirt for incriminating patches of red. Casual officewear was much worse at hiding bloodstains than body armor. His clothes were intact, but dirty and rumpled, with a few tiny holes scattered over his chest that looked like needle punctures. At least the camouflaging sleeve on his left arm was still intact and mirroring the appearance of his right arm. 

“Filing.”

“Filing,” Wilson repeated flatly.

Bucky liked filing. It was soothing to go through a messy stack of papers and sort them into neatly labeled folders. His therapist had suggested part-time clerical work as a low-stakes way to integrate into modern civilian life, and it had been successful enough that he’d been working for the same nonprofit housing advocacy group for two years now. His coworkers were nice and didn’t mind that he mostly nodded instead of saying hello and ate his lunch alone in the storage closet.

Bucky reached for memories of getting ready for his shift that morning. Put on the outfit he'd laid out on his dresser the night before. Brush hair, brush teeth. Attach and activate left arm cloaking sleeve. Fill Alpine’s water dish, give Alpine breakfast. Eat his own breakfast, get his pre-packed lunch box out of the fridge--

But he hadn’t, had he? “I forgot my lunch.”

“That’s what Steve said.” Wilson had gathered up the fallen cards and started shuffling them, snapping the cards together on top of Bucky’s kneecaps. “You called him from work and he stopped by to drop it off.”

Bucky frowned in concentration, trying to pull up a memory of the call, but everything after leaving the house that morning remained frustratingly blank. He glanced again at the police cars in the parking lot, noting that there were handcuffed figures in the back seats. “I was attacked,” he guessed.

“Close,” Romanova said. “Your building was compromised, but one of your coworkers was the target.”

“She’s fine,” Wilson added, when Bucky turned reflexively, about to go do a headcount. “She almost got kidnapped, but she’s okay, thanks to you guys.”

“Which coworker?” Bucky asked.

“Stacey Vanderbilt. Her mom’s a senator, they think that’s why she was targeted. You want in?” Wilson dealt out three hands without waiting for Bucky’s response.

“Why are you here?” If there had been an Avengers call-out, the cops outside would have been SHIELD agents, and Stark would be around somewhere making himself typically impossible to ignore. He never missed a chance to gawk at Bucky’s personal life, since all of it was firmly off the grid. Bucky was glad he and Steve had gotten JARVIS and Ms. Potts on their side early on. 

“Steve called us. He thought you’d want to see familiar faces when you were waking up.”

“We’re your nice, normal, civilian friends,” Romanova said, smiling a very un-civilian smile. “Got any sevens?”

Bucky flicked a seven of spades at her nose, pleased to note that his fine motor control was returning. The ensuing slap fight further disordered the cards, but proved that he’d regained his gross motor functioning as well. 

Three short whistled notes caught his attention. Bucky turned and saw a new police officer talking to Steve, this one bigger and trying to loom over him. Steve rocked forward casually onto the balls of his feet, forcing the officer to take a step back rather than let Steve’s nose hit his chest, then started signing without looking away from the officer's eyes or dropping his faux polite smile. 

"What's up?" Wilson asked.

Bucky watched Steve, then looked at the evidence bag the increasingly agitated police officer was waving around. "They know he used a taser and they want to confiscate it."

"Is it street legal?"

"I'm ninety-seven years old. I don't know what newfangled laws you have now. I do know Steve is thirty seconds away from getting arrested.” He gave Wilson an expectant look.

"Appropriating the Captain America voice to keep your boyfriend out of jail is an abuse of government resources," Wilson said, but he hopped down from the ambulance and jogged over in time to stop Steve’s smile from going thin and dangerous. Romanova followed, casually taking up a leaning pose against the evidence van where she could intercept any items too sensitive for the police to handle.

Bucky straightened up a little, taking up the responsibility of being on watch now that he was the only one in the ambulance. His toes and fingers responded promptly when he flexed them; the sedative was nearly gone. He looked up sharply when a new figure made for the direction of the ambulance, but relaxed when he recognized one of his coworkers. 

“Hey,” Hernando said, sidling up to the ambulance doors. He looked more wide-eyed than usual, but not pale or clammy, so he was holding up pretty well for a civilian who'd just experienced his first hostile incursion. “So uh, we didn’t want to overwhelm you by all coming over at once, but everyone wanted to say thanks.”

Hernando gestured to the cluster of office workers bunched up by one corner of the police tape. A few people waved at him and smiled. Bucky ducked his head.

“I didn’t do anything,” Bucky said.

“Don’t you remember? When they first came in, you got in the way before they could get to anyone else. I’ve never seen anyone move that fast. And your boyfriend got everyone running the other way, so by the time they came after us we’d already--well, he can tell you. The point is, they would have grabbed Stacey right away if it wasn’t for you. So. Thanks, from all of us.”

Bucky swallowed and nodded. He wasn’t used to being the one receiving the thanks of grateful civilians, since he was usually a hundred yards away from the action and even when he was closer the face mask and goggles tended to put people off. He wasn’t sure how to handle it, but it was--good. He would find better words for the warm feeling later. For now, it was enough to know it was good.

A vigorously waving arm caught his attention, and he picked Stacey out from the crowd as she jumped up and down and beamed. She held up what was unmistakably Steve’s not remotely street-legal taser, then gave Bucky a huge thumbs-up. Bucky gave her a thumbs-up back. _MARRY HIM_ , she mouthed, jabbing her free hand at Steve’s back, and Bucky _blushed_. 

Hernando looked over his shoulder, glancing at Steve and the cops, before he leaned in and lowered his voice. “Listen, can I ask you something? I don’t mean to get into your business, it’s just.”

The silence stretched for so long that even Bucky got uncomfortable with it. “Just what?”

“Are you Batman?” Hernando blurted. “Because those guys had to shoot you with, like, fifty tranq darts before you went down, and your boyfriend stole a UPS from the server room and hooked up the battery to the conference room door to electrocute whoever touched the handle, and if Batman is _real_ and he’s your partner or whatever that’s cool, but if not I kind of feel like I should call the FBI?”

“You don’t need to call the FBI,” Bucky said.

Hernando deflated, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Okay. Okay, cool. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I’m not Batman.”

“Yeah, sure.” Hernando patted his shoulder, awkward but sincere. “Be careful out there.”

“Be careful out where?” Steve asked from directly behind him, and Hernando jumped half a foot into the air.

“Nowhere! Nothing! Thanks again, James!” Hernando backed up another step with every sentence. “See you next Tuesday.”

“See you,” Bucky repeated, bemused, and Hernando fled the scene, giving Steve a wide berth.

“Hey,” Steve said. He climbed into the ambulance and leaned his forehead against Bucky’s. Bucky breathed with him for a beat, letting the quiet settle into both of them.

“Steve."

“I’m okay.” Steve pulled back and looked Bucky over critically, as though his condition might have changed while he'd been asleep in an ambulance guarded by friendlies. 

Bucky had other priorities. He tapped Steve’s bandaged elbows and deployed his most concerned eyebrows.

Steve rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “So, as it turns out? Crawling through the ceiling vents is a really dumb idea. Your building’s drop space was big enough, _barely_ , but it was full of dust and rusty old screws and spiders. _So many spiders_. I scraped the shit out of my elbows and almost had an asthma attack before I got back out. It looks so much easier in action movies.”

“Tetanus shot?”

“Got one last year, I’m good.” Steve nodded discreetly at Hernando, who had wedged himself back into the knot of coworkers and was furiously whispering with the other IT staff. “What was that about?”

“He thinks I’m Batman.” Bucky tapped the mask hanging around Steve’s neck, and Steve looked down at it with faint surprise, like he’d forgotten he was wearing it.

“I wasn’t sure who these guys were or what they wanted, so I went with a disguise.” Steve pulled the mask up and over his face, widening his eyes comically behind it. “One of them did ask if I was Robin, actually. I think he thought I was twelve.”

“What did you say back?”

Steve glared into the middle distance and dropped his voice into a harsh whisper. “I’m your worst nightmare.”

Bucky smiled. Most people couldn’t tell when he was smiling, but Steve always caught it. “Did he faint?”

“Yeah, but I tased him while I was saying it, so I’m not sure it counts.” 

“My hero.” He laced their fingers together, careful of the scrapes on Steve’s knuckles. “Thanks for bringing me lunch.”

“Anytime.”

Bucky let his eyes close, knowing Steve would pick up the slack while his guard was down, and took a moment to appreciate the experience of coming out of sedation surrounded by people he could trust. This was so much better than waking up halfway through the process of extracting himself from SHIELD medical.

“Oh, wait, shit.” Steve smacked his forehead with his free hand, crinkling the cheap plastic against his face. “Your lunch!”

* * *

INSURANCE CLAIM REPORT

SUBMITTED TO:

Stark Industries, Liability and Indemnity Department

INCIDENT SUMMARY:

NOTE: In the interest of national security, sections of this report have been redacted. Please contact phil.coulson@SHIELD.gov for further details.

On _______ _______, at approximately ____ in the morning, multiple armed intruders spearheaded by ________ ____________ _________ unlawfully gained entrance to ___________ ___________ ___________ at ________ ______ ______ for the purposes of _______________ _____________ ____ _______ _____________ __________ ________ _________. Present were _____ ___________ __________ (alias ___ ______ ________) and ________ _______ (a contractor with ________).

In the ensuing confrontation, [[if you’re using view source to read this I applaud your ingenuity]] became temporarily [[but there aren't any jokes in here]] due to [[just this one secret message]]. Once _______ saw the ______ ________ ______ _______ and _________ ____________ _______ __________ ____________ ____ _________ _______________ _______ ________, he judged that it was in the _____________ best interests to _________ ____________ ______________ ___________ and began __________ _________ __________ ___________ ___________ ____________ ____________ _____ ________. _______, after _________ _____ _____ _______ and dragging ____ ______ to safety, directed the civilians on site to ________ _______ ________ ________ __________ ________ _____ ______ and organized improvised defenses, including __ _____ ___________ _______ __________ ________ ___________ _______________ ______________ _________ ______________ ________ _____________ ____________ ________ ______ _____ ______, _____ __________ ___________ ________ ___________ ___________ __________ ___________ _________ ___________ _________ _________ ___________ threaded through _____ __________ ___________ ________ ___________ ___________ __________ ___________ __ _________ __________ ____________ ________ ________ ___________ __________ ____________ ___________ __________ _____, _____ __________ ___________ ________ __________ _________ ____________ ___________ __________ _____, paper clips combined with ____ _______ ________ _________ __________ ____________ ___________, ______ ________ _________ over ________ __________ ___________ ________ ___________ ________ ___________ __________ ____________ ___________ __________ _____ (externally applied).

These were largely effective, disabling _____ __________ ___________ ________ ___________ ___________ __________ ___________ _________ ___________ by  ____ ________________ __________ ____________ ________ _____ _________ ___________ _________ __________ ____________ ________ until  ________ ___________ __________ ____________ ___________ __________ _____, while the defenders sustained only minor injuries (______ _____ ____ and a bruised ankle).

However, this did result in considerable property damage, which has been itemized for reimbursement below (structural damage to _______ _______ __________ ______ and ____ _____ walls caused by ______ ___________ ______________ _______________ ____ _________ ____________, ____ _________ _______ ____________, and improvised projectiles has been calculated separately--see the building structural integrity assessment in Appendix C for full details).

ITEM | STATUS  
---|---  
Large conference room table (collapsed) | Approved  
Large conference room white board (broken) | Approved  
Large conference room projector and screen (__ _________ and ___) | Approved  
Three (3) staplers | Approved  
RICOH MP C6003 Toner Cartridge, Magenta | Approved  
RICOH MP C6003 Toner Cartridge, Cyan | Approved  
Two (2) rolls Saran Wrap | Approved  
Six (6) rolls duct tape | Approved  
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume mask, size: Youth 10 - 13 | Approved  
___ ____ ____ _______ _______ _____ ________ _______ (trampled) | Approved  
______ _____ (water damage) | Approved  
____ ____ ________ _ (welded to _____, ____ ________ __________, and ultimately set on fire) | Approved  
Nine (9) forks, four (4) butter knives, and two (2) serving ladles | Approved  
Uninterruptible Power Source (UPS) battery | Approved  
One (1) packed lunch (spoiled) | Denied  
  
REVIEWER COMMENTS:

Et tu, Agent? JARVIS won't give me the security tapes, ______ and ___ ____ refuse to spill the beans, and now you've redacted all the juicy bits out of the insurance report? My own team is conspiring against me. Under great protest, I'm approving the other claims, but tell _____ I'm not buying his boyfriend a new lunch while he still owes me a taco. -TS


End file.
